Conventionally, many electrical connectors have female terminals. Generally, the female terminals have a form of a socket into/from which a male terminal is inserted/extracted. The female terminals are often assembled into a housing.
In Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-505511 A, female terminals are assembled in a housing, and secured therein through deflecting engaging beams formed in the housings. The female terminals are held in the housing through an elastic force exerted by the engaging beams, commonly called lances. In other examples, the engaging beams might be formed on the female terminals and directly engage a housing.
Electrical connectors are used in a wide variety of environments, and depending on the application, the connectors can be subjected to strong vibrational forces. In addition to vibrational forces, large external forces might directly act on the female terminals upon insertion and extraction or the like. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a securing force sufficient to hold the female terminals in the housing, such that the female terminals do not disengage from the engaging beams of the housing in such instances.
While increasing the thickness or the length of the engaging beams might be helpful for this purpose, the space necessary for the engaging beams to deflect would be increased which, in turn, would lead to increases in size of the connector.
Therefore, there is a need for an electrical connector capable of generating a sufficient holding force on the female terminals, while avoiding subsequent increases in size.